- Conference
- 2004 National Black Members' Conference
- Date
- 31 October 2003
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that this, our tenth anniversary year also sees the tenth anniversary of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. We therefore welcome the fact that the National Executive Council has decided that this year our underlying anniversary theme will be opposing racism and promoting equality.
Conference welcomes the fact that UNISON has developed an action plan as part of our response to the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. This action plan, which has been endorsed by the National Executive Council, promotes an anti-racist agenda with employers, with the community, and in our internal approach.
We can be proud of our positive achievements over the past ten years, but must recognise the amount of work, which we now have to do.
PROMOTING AN ANTI-RACIST AGENDA TO EMPLOYERS
Conference commends the work already carried out at national level to help to equip UNISON branches to raise issues of institutional racism with employers, including guidance on the Lawrence Inquiry report and on the Race Relations (Amendment) Act.
Conference also applauds branches that have been proactive in pursuing the issue of racism at work. For example, Hackney local government branch, which persuaded the Commission for Racial Equality to serve a non-discrimination notice on Hackney Council in December 2000.
However, we note that there is a massive and continuing problem of institutional racism in employment in this country;
1)unemployment is considerably higher among ethnic minority communities. In 1998, 5.8 percent of white people of working age were unemployed on average, but among people from ethnic minorities it was more than double that at 13 percent;
2)an African Caribbean graduate is more than twice as likely to be unemployed as a white person with A-levels. African men with degrees are seven times more likely to be unemployed than white male graduates;
3)there is under representation of black and ethnic minority people at senior levels in the workforce. A report from the Chief Personnel Officer of Birmingham City Council in July 2001 stated that: “Black and Minority Ethnic employees still continue to be under-represented in higher graded jobs, where they face a “glass” ceiling”;
4)black and ethnic minority workers are over represented among those facing disciplinary action or dismissal. Research published by the Institute for Employment Studies in 1999 found that managers in nine London Borough Councils acknowledged that they took the race of an employee into account when deciding whether or not to take formal action.
Conference believes that this clear evidence of institutional racism in employment is not acceptable. Conference therefore seeks in consultation with National Black Members’ Committee, the region, the National Executive Council, and service group executives as appropriate to;
a) continue to support branches, such as the Hackney and Lambeth Local Government Branch, who find themselves at the sharp end of our opposition to racism in employment;
b) continue to issue guidance and advice to branches, with a particular emphasis on generalising good practice such as Positive Action training and identifying concrete demands which can be placed on employers.
PROMOTING AN ANTI-RACIST AGENDA IN THE COMMUNITY
Conference is appalled at the continuing evidence of racist disadvantage across our society. This is illustrated by statistical information published by the Commission for Racial Equality which show the failure to redress racial disadvantage across education, health, housing and the legal system;
African Caribbean pupils are over four times more likely to be excluded than white pupils, although they are no more likely to truant than others. Many of those excluded are of higher or average ability although the schools see them as underachieving.
Infant mortality is 100 percent higher for the children of African Caribbean or Pakistani mothers than white mothers.
70 percent of all people from ethnic minorities live in the 88 most deprived local authority districts, compared with 40 percent of the general population.
In 1998/9 black people were six times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than white people.
Conference believes that positive government initiatives to address this problem, such as the introduction of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act are undermined by other government policies which are racist in effect if not intent. In particular, this meeting reaffirms our opposition to racist asylum and immigration legislation, which we believe, helps to legitimise and encourages racism. This meeting believes that trade unions must continue to be at the forefront of opposition to racist laws, and must also play a central educational role in explaining to our members and our communities the truth about racism.
Conference therefore in consultation with the region National Black Members’ Committee to:
i) support, encourage and seek to participate in any government initiatives which are consistent with UNISON’s anti-racist agenda, such as work around community cohesion;
ii) continue to campaign for the rights of asylum seekers, to support individual campaigns and cases, working with the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns and Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers, and to lobby the Government for fair and effective anti-racist legislation at work and in the wider community;
iii) continue to work with other organisations that share our anti-racist agenda in campaigns such as Show Racism the Red Card, and the Anti-Nazi League’s Love Music Hate Racism initiative.
PROMOTING AN ANTI-RACIST AGENDA IN OUR INTERNAL APPROACH
Conference recognises that trade unions are part of a society marked by institutional racism and believes that UNISON must be vigilant in order to identify and seek to overcome any internal obstacles to the vigorous promotion of anti-racism in all areas of our work.
Conference recollects:
I) concerns expressed at more than one meeting and national conferences about UNISON’s support for black members facing discrimination at work, and the decision of UNISON National Delegate Conference in 2001 that our approach to deciding which cases to support needed to be reviewed;
ii) that previous UNISON membership systems have lacked the capacity to monitor the ethnicity of our members, which means that UNISON has not been able to carry out the most basic monitoring which we demand of employers. Although the Replacement Membership System now has this capacity, even now UNISON in fact has monitoring information about only a small minority of our membership;
III) concern expressed at National Delegate Conference 2002 about the low level of response from branches to the union’s questionnaire on the impact of the Lawrence Inquiry recommendations. The results of this questionnaire indicate that branches would welcome further support in terms of training for activists.
Conference believes that we must be as active in promoting our anti-racist agenda internally as we are in relation to employers and the wider community.
Conference therefore asks the National Executive Council, in consultation with the National Black Members’ Committee to:
A) keep under review the criteria and process whereby the union decides whether to support individual cases, and to audit a sample of cases not supported, in ord